Why write about executions?

I received one comment so far on this blog. The poster asked: "What will people actually read and/or take in? There is so much violence in our world already- many just avoid this topic altogether."

Maybe this won't be about violence. Maybe this won't be a story about a man being put to death. Maybe this will be about something else. I don't know yet.

For me, I think it's important to know - if only for a few hours - who this man is, why he's being put to death. Maybe people don't want to know there's a human being beneath the crack addiction and the killing. Maybe there's not. Maybe I'll look into his eyes and see that the soul of Christopher Scott Emmett vacated the body of Christopher Scott Emmett a long time ago. Maybe there will be evil in those eyes.

Maybe there will be fear, or anger, or sadness. I don't know. Maybe I'll learn, as did the little girl who dared to venture into a haunted house to see why the shutters moved on windless days, that a kitten in need of petting was rubbing against them. Then again, maybe I'll see the doors of hell yawning open and the demons that torture those who kill now live behind those eyes. I don't know. But I'm willing to look. And if I'm willing to look, I hope my readers are willing to read about it.

That's why I started this blog. What was simply a story is becoming more than just facts about a man who killed his roommate. As Al Tompkins told me several days ago. "You are about to see a human being die. It is more than a newspaper story."